After Tess of the D’Urbervilles published, it has brought an extensive influence to scholars at home and abroad. Many scholars have studied Tess of the D’Urbervilles from the different view of versions and gained great achievements. There are some mature research studies all over the world for Tess of the D’Urbervilles, including  the analysis of the tragedy from the environment, the character of Tess, image features, charcters of symbolism, feminism, ecofeminism, patriarchy, nature and native spirit, reasons and roots of forming Tess’s tragedy, etc. For example, Dale Kramer’s The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy (2000), the author introduces Hardy detailed from many aspects, and shows his ideas of aesthetics and his emotions of Wessex which help us to know the background of Hardy when he wrote Tess of the D’Urbervilles. However, comparing to these research angles, there are little researches and studies of Tess of the D’Urbervilles from the point view of biblical archetype. Some scholars think that the conflict between good and evil is the main plot forming the Bible, and just because of the conflict between good and evil forming the unfortunate fate of Tess. 

In my thesis, I will have an interpretation of Tess of the D’Urbervilles from the point view of biblical archetype. Archetypes of main characters and scenes will be discussed, including the archetypes of characters Tess, Alec and Angel and main scenes. Because of Tess’s purity, responsibility, love and loyalty, she is portrayed as Eve, Jesus and Job. Because of Alec’s uhliness, greedy, bad character, he is portrayed as Satan. Because of Angel’s two sides, he is portrayed as Angel. Because of the similarities between Talbothays and Eden, the place Tess worked is potrayed as Eden. And because of the same imaginary place which means purity, loyalty and holiness, the place Tess is arrested is portrayed as Stonehenge. Hardy’s anti-Christianity ,critic to God will, and his pathos will be revealed in Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Chapter One The Archetypal Characters in Tess of the D’Urbervilles

1. Multiple Archetypal Embodiments of the Heroine ---Tess 文献综述

As we all know, Tess is the heroine in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. She is regarded  as a pure woman which sounds like a “satire”, because she was seduced by Alec and  gave birth to a baby unmarried, which was regarded as impure in some people’s eyes. Hardy may have had Hood’s lines from “The Bridge of Sighs”:

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully;

          Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly. (15-20)

Just from this poet he quotes, we may see Tess’s unfortunate destiny. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Tess has several archetypal images related to the figures in the Bible. When it comes to discuss archetype, we should know something about it.

Archetype is the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based. It is a symbol that often occurs in the literary works. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, argues that archetypes provide people the models of behaviors and personalities which are innate, universal and hereditary. “All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes,” Jung explains in his book The Structure of the Psyche. He also says that:

This is particular true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form, they are variants of archetypal ideas created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness, not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses but to translate into visible reality the world within us (138).